On August 5, the Cabinet of Ministers reviewed information report prepared by the Ministry of Justice on influence of liquidation of the Chamber of Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court to proceedings in criminal cases.

The Chamber of Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court operates until 31 December 2014, as along with reform of courts competence is redistributed among the Supreme Court, regional courts and district (city) courts, establishing that all cases shall be heard in the first instance only by district (city) courts, in the appellate instance – by regional courts and in cassation instance – by the Supreme Court. It is pointed out in the information report that it is possible to terminate operation of the Chamber of Criminal Cases in term stipulated by the law.   

As it is pointed out in the report – the most possible risk related to right to review of a case in reasonable term refers to those criminal cases proceeded by the Chamber of Criminal Cases, in which trial investigation was commenced before 1 July. If examination of these cases in these cases shall not be finished until 31 December, those shall be transferred to regional courts  as the appellate instance courts, and, observing principle of constancy of composition of a court, those must be reviewed anew; however, it shall cause significant influence to total length of examination of these cases and may cause violation of Section 14 of the Criminal Procedure Law – right to review of a case in reasonable term.

There are 31 cases under proceedings in the Chamber of Criminal Cases and in all of them examination is set to September, October and November. Examination of these cases could be finished until the end of the year, when the Chamber of Criminal Cases terminates its work. However, examination of a case may be influenced by such factors as inattentive attitude of parties to proceedings to their procedural duties or abuse of rights granted to them in order to impede court proceedings on purpose. Information report shows that in this case attitude of parties to proceedings should be observed and violation of right to review of a case in reasonable term should not be established.  

It is pointed out in information report that issue regarding further career of judges of the Chamber of Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court should be solved. At present, solutions envisaged in the law “On Judicial Power” are passage, transfer or instruction. The Ministry of Justice, in response to proposal of the Supreme Court, recognises as solution a necessity, in cooperation with the Ministry of Welfare, to assess and develop procedure, to grant right to such judge to pre-term long-service pension.

Information report also shows that liquidation of the Chamber of Criminal Cases will be related to redistribution of resources between budget of the Supreme Court and that of the Court Administration.   

Observing the fact that reform of courts envisages transition to clear three-level system also in civil cases, information report point out that consecutively it should be necessary to continue work commenced on redistribution of court competencies among court instances in civil cases,  ensuring termination of operation of the Chamber of Civil Cases of the Supreme Court on 31 December 2016.

It is possible to get familiarised with information report on the web siteof the Cabinet of Ministers.

 

Information prepared by

Rasma Zvejniece, the Head of the Division of Communication of the Supreme Court

E-mail: rasma.zvejniece@at.gov.lv, telephone: 67020396, 28652211